My World this Week

I'm beginning to feel better, just in time to do some outside work (beginning tomorrow, though) before the frosts and freezes arrive.  The aroma of Autumn is my very favorite for I adore the scent of decaying leaves from the forest and wood smoke from the neighbor's wood burning stove.  Those in my family sensitive to mold and smoke... not so much.

I think by next week, there will be enough color to once again walk around snapping photos.  I do want to walk down to the end of the County Road and take a photo of the corn drying in the in the field.  Hopefully it has not been harvested.

As for the everything else... this is my world (mostly inside) as seen through the eyes of my camera lens this week.

Reading

I re-read this book while on the sofa.  It was purchased for the Kindle awhile ago only because the hardback copy was much more expensive.  The Feast Nearby follows Robin Mather, an award winning food writer, from the day she moves to live in what had been her summer cottage on the lake... now to be her full time residence after losing her job and having her husband ask for a divorce in the same week.  Yuk!

This is her journey in eating "well" with her $40 a week food budget.  Partly a story of learning how to eat well on the cheap, partly a soliloquy to purchasing fresh and from the source when possible, and very much a book about how to cook.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed spending time with the author on these pages and I added a great deal of cooking knowledge to wherever such things are stored in my head.  More information... here.*

Watching

My kids have shared info about Apps for the iPod since giving it to me as a gift.  But the above App is one I found while searching the iTunes store.

It is the App from the PBS New York channel and it is really, really good.  It only has a limited number of shows you can choose from but there are more than enough.  And they contain various Masterpiece shows as well as two or three cooking shows (with all of the season's episodes to watch).

It is called Thirteen Explore (I think) in the iTunes store.  Oh, did I tell you it is free?

Creating

People ask me all the time how I became quite proficient at decorating our home.  The answer is very easy... for decades I have perused my favorite decorating magazines and I used to watch HGTV (when the emphasis was on gardens and decorating, not on Real Estate deals).

Quite often the pictures were of items and rooms far more expensive than I could afford, even when my husband was working as an engineer, but I studied where they placed furniture and the kinds of accessories used and how they put it all together.  Over time, I developed my own style and became skilful at shopping thrift and resale stores. 

I saw an "autumnal still life in an antique drawer" somewhere in my perusing recently and thought to myself, "Self, we have an antique drawer that is currently holding charging cords, hmmm.".  At which time my self said I should find a separate place for the cords and come up with my own autumnal still life.  So I did.  You can see the entire top of the buffet in the first photo above.

Baking

Stephanie and her family visited a church while in South Haven and one of the gifts given to visitors was this brownie-in-a-jar. She gave it to me and I used it last week when Hubby was wanting "something baked" and I wasn't feeling well.  It was easy to assemble and delicious.

I put together quite a few brownie-in-a-jar mixes for gifts last Christmas.  This is a different recipe called Sand Art Brownies, which are meant to look like sand at the Lake.  Quite clever!

Study

I know I just showed the way the Study is currently looking but the sun is finally beginning to shine nicely through the windows again.  A certain signal that the leaves have really been dropping from the trees surrounding that part of the house.

Her Fluffiness

Ummmm... don't ask.  I didn't.

*All book links are Associate.